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Sound file : NLOTF (08)

Speaker: Gelek Rimpoche

Location: Netherlands

Topic: Odyssey To Freedom

Transcriber: Jayapushpa

Date: 14th November 2021.

If you don’t, try to understand. Try to analyse. Try to meditate and find your own conclusion and focus that. You know you have a sangha, great wonderful sangha. Jewel Heart sangha in Netherlands. You can talk about it. You can share your thoughts. And you exchange your ideas. And let it flow freely. No one should dominate and say you can’t say that way, you can’t think that way. No one should. So that’s how you grow. Then you understand. Total enlightenment is understanding. I said yesterday, remember, analysing alone will not achieve anything. It will go crazy. But after analysing, you have to draw conclusion. Then you have to meditate. And that will make part of your life. And you will understand what that is all about. What karma is all about it, how do I go ? when do I go? what do I do? All of them you will have knowledge and experience even. And you will never regret. We are almost covering common with the medium…no, lower level now, before lunch break. Bona petit.. 0:02:42.0

Thank you, we will continue where we left it. And where we left is half the verse of the Three Principles Aspects of it, and that is ‘Deeply contemplate the certainty of karma, and constant suffering of samsara, See beyond the circle of life. Now, in this case we don’t have it neither in the Three Principle nor in the Foundation of Perfection, but should be here in the outline of the Odyssey, is ‘Contemplate the bardo’, we did not talk about it. ‘Avoid the hell realm, hungry ghost realm, animal realm birth, remember the limitations of human birth’…all of those, we should really…what happen to the ‘Refuge’ here? (Hartmut: 32, take refuge) Okay, there you are. Thank you. ‘Know what can help in the life and death’. So, we’ve been saying we do it ourself. And we know there’s something to do at least from the guru devotional to this level, as well as the six preliminaries, we got lots of things to do. Yet, in case if you do not have the time, opportunity, or didn’t have chance to do it, if suddenly something happens, then what shall we do? Okay, now that is the refuge now. Then when you can’t help it, then you go to somebody who can help. So we take refuge. And refuge is of course the doorway to be Buddhist. And where you draw the line, you got to Buddhist or not Buddhist, is whether you take refuge or not. That is the doorway. To be able to take refuge is privilege. Privilege for me. Privilege for me and maybe to you, some people, but some people may be not. But doesn’t matter whatever it is. What you need to do is when you take refuge, you need to know who, and what and how. And this is always every subject we have…whom, where and how, is the question. Always we have. 0:07:59.5

Who we are taking refuge, according to the Buddhist, there is the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. If you want to take refuge to Jesus, so on and forth, that’s fine with me, as long as the person who you take refuge is fully enlightened one. If it is not fully enlightened, if you take refuge, you will be harmed. Okay. Fully enlightened one. We say Buddha because we know fully enlightened one is Buddha. That’s why we say Buddha. But if you know another person who is fully enlightened, just go ahead and do it, doesn’t matter. That’s why I say if Jesus is fine. But if you want to take refuge to some ghosts, someone who lives in the trees or rivers, or fire, like these early Egyptian gods, like the water god, the fire god, the tree god. Even if it is God, it is okay. But if it is ghost, who lives in that…don’t take refuge to ghost. Here’s why. They can’t help you. They maybe able to help you something little bit. You know, you want extra hat, or wooden shoe….do you still wear wooden shoe? No, okay. Last time when I was here, two three years ago, Robert’s always wearing wooden shoes running around ‘ka tak ka tak ka tak’ all the time. I haven’t seen that recently. Anyway, you know if you want extra hat or wooden shoe, the ghost can help you. They can steal yours and deliver at Robert’s. (Laughter) And always they have a motivation behind. They are going to say to Robert, “If I give you wooden shoe, now you have to give me this, this, this, this” And at the end the ghost will say, “Hey, I have to take your life” So that’s the reason why you shouldn’t take refuge…one of the reason why you shouldn’t take refuge to the ghost. Besides that ghosts themselves are not free of suffering. And they don’t know how to help themselves, so they can’t help you. So, that’s why not. But Buddha on the other hand supposed to help himself. And he knew what to do because he went through. And he helps everybody whether you pay him or not. And he supposed to have great Compassion to all equal continuously. And that’s why He is fit to be. You understand? Okay. So when we are talking about the Buddha, what do you get in your picture, in your head? And if you think image, or thangka, you are wrong. Oh, no, I am not thinking of image or thangka. I am thinking about the guy who was in India 2600 years ago. Well, that was 2600 years ago. But still, we are thinking historical Buddha. Historical Buddha maybe active today but if you make the result refuge, the result refuge will be the truly your own Buddha. Right now you don’t have it. Right now is immature, infant Buddha. The historical Buddha represents the fully matured Buddha. So, ultimately your own Buddha is your own refuge. 0:14:32.6

Dharma, also. What is Dharma? We talked yesterday. The..not Shantideva, Vasubandhu, *Rimpoche quotes in tibetan* There are two different Dharma, the knowledge information part of it , and the quality part of it. And some people will say the book is Dharma, some people will say teaching is Dharma. But they are representations again. Okay, ‘representations’, when the Dutch people think of representation, and I think normal representations are different. Maybe I am wrong. (Translator: It’s the same) For Dutch ‘representation ‘means best of all. You know you can put on the exhibition and outstanding example. At least one Dutch person that sense to me. You know how do I know? I saw this house that we hoped to buy. So, the person who showed me said, ‘This is representation, representation’. And I am thinking of representing what? (Laughters) But the message really means it is good outstanding example. So, when we use the historical Buddha represents your future Buddha, I don’t mean the example, you know. It really substitute represents, take place, and you know…okay, good enough. So, right now our future Buddha to certain people is infant Buddha, to certain people is only seed, to certain people is baby Buddha. So, whatever it is , historical Buddha represents that. We are talking ‘Dharma’, right? We already talking Dharma. Anyway, we talked Dharma …Buddha already. We are talking Dharma. I even quite both the ….ya, then my idea came up. Books and teachings represent, doesn’t mean best of the Dharma.That’s where I went off, okay. The best of Dharma is not book and the teachings but the spiritual development is the real true Dharma. You remember the famous Buddhist story, ‘Buddha is like a doctor, Dharma is like medicine, sangha like nurse. Remember? So, the doctor doesn’t cure you but the medicine cures you. The doctor diagnoses and recommends the medicine, and patient takes the medicine and gets better, if the right one. And provided there is not enough side effects. So, likewise what really cure us is the Dharma. Because the Dharma is the antidote against negativities. So Dharma is against antidote of cause of negative. Dharma is the antidote of negativity itself. Dharma is the antidote of result of negativity. So where does it work? It works at the causal level. And they don’t work at the…they do work but they are not that effective at the result or result level. Why? Because karma is definite, remember? Can you recollect earlier we said karma is definite. So when it is definite it means it’s locked in. When it started giving the result, it is already locked in. Even you have created, you but you cannot modify at all. It is like some crazy scientist you can see in some crazy movies, some crazy scientist created some thing crazy, and they can’t control, they go out of control. You know we always hear the rumours….the aids are coming out of Pentagon, they don’t know what to do, they lost the controller, ceratin chemicals. And we hear now this flu like sysmptoms , what is it, Sars, that ya, Severe acute …(Audience: Respitory) respitory symptoms’. We that some Chinese experimental thing went off and that’s what’s happening. We hear that, right? So, it is like that. When it’s gone out of your control, it is out of control, they will make their own speed. Until then, you can’t do much, until it finished, you know. 0:23:09.9

Thank you. So, karma is like that. So, it works very well at the causal level. The cause of negativity are the negative thoughts, negative emotions. So, Dharma works perfectly well against that. Compassion and love, can completely defeat hatred. Pure love can defeat obsession. Patience can defeat anger. And, give me one example…generosity can defeat miserliness. Enthusiasm can defeat and overcome laziness. And concentration can overcome and defeat the wandering unlimited craziness, day dreaming, all of those. And Wisdom can overcome the ignorance, confusion and ego. And that is how Dharma is like a medicine. And by eating it you cure the symptoms of those negative emotions. But you don’t eat Dharma, though I say ‘by eating Dharma’. But you merge yourself with the Dharma. And that is how you take refuge and how refuge protects you. Okay, the refuge does not necessarily mean submission. You know some people say well, I take refuge, so I am submitting. I think it is some kind of….to me I think it is silly statement. But on the other hand, it maybe the way, you know. But if you leave it up to them, their answer is you do it. So, Buddha can only give you the Dharma. And Buddha cannot enter in our body and change it. We ask blessing of the Buddha, and what He gives us is the Dharma. That is because Dharma transforms us. It is the Dharma that change us, right? You know Dharma really change our mind. It change our priority. It change our way of perceiving life. What does it do? Normally if we are mean person, Dharma change you not to be mean but to be kind person. If you are dull person, Dharma change us to be alive and witty, or whatever. And most important, if you are an immoral person, Dharma change us to be good moral, or what is it? How do you say? To be a perfect moral. To be moral, right? That’s it, right. Just moral. And if you are stupid, Dharma will make us wise. And that’s why Dharma is really important. Dogma is different. Anyway, Dharma is the real refuge. 0:29:53.8

And Sangha is the helper. The Sangha helps, you know. Okay, that should be enough. So, the Buddha here is…okay, forget it. There are qualities of the Buddha, qualities of the Dharma, qualities of the Sangha. There are eight, eight, eight of them. *Rimpoche recites in tibetan.* (also referring to a geshela in the audience). Anyway, there’s like eight qualities of sangha, eight qualities of the Dharma, eight qualities of the Buddha, and all of those. You will find them in the Odyssey or any other lam rim books. So, read those informations. So that way you will know the Buddha image is not the Buddha. And everybody who claims to be Buddha is not Buddha. And there are people who named themselves as Buddha too. You know there are lots of people who name Buddha, you know. *Rimpoche spoke in tibetan*. (then laughs). We have sayings funny like that so, that person who named “Buddha’ you know, not necessarily Buddha, if you named yourself Buddha. And if you named yourself Bodhisattva, not necessarily bodhisattva. We have one in Ann Arbor, we called ‘Bodhisattva John”. He is a crazy guy, so absolutely. …he’s just out of the institution, in and out. So he is called ‘bodhisattva’ But he is a nice guy actually, very nice guy. He lives in the street, so He comes to Jewel Heart and he wants to have a chair right in the middle and sits there for a few minutes and do things like that and then goes away (Rimpoche laughs). He has a name ‘Bodhisattva’ but not necessarily bodhisattva, you know. So, by knowing the object of refuge and then taking refuge. 0:33:52.

Hinayana and Mahayana way of taking refuge different. The Mahayana special way of taking refuge is on top of that, you take refuge with Compassion. The Hinayana is only the fear and trust. You fear, one afraid of falling into lower realms, or I trust you and you help me. So, Rimpoche quotes in tibetan …So, the cause of taking refuge, is fear and trust. Mahayana, it adds up the Compassion on that. Okay, then actual taking refuge is intelligent faith based rely on. Again intelligent faith will make you not to take refuge to someone who can’t help you. Intelligent faith will help you not to take refuge to the wrong object or subject. Even sometimes very intelligent person can switch yourself completely 100% different at the time ….you can really switched, terrible switching you can do. For example you know those people who have hijacked the plane. On September 11, 2001, if you look those people, they are not stupid people. They are educated, intelligent. And the pilot not just trained in Afghanistan. Pilot trained in those highest schools in Europe and United States. And got to be intelligent, can’t be stupid. But when the time comes, they shut all their intelligence completely and single pointed obsession of whatever wrong information they have, for cause or for whatever, they just believe it the moment they die they going to be in pureland or whatever, with 60 or 70 virgins waiting for them. So, even you are intelligent, you can shut off your intellectual understanding completely, and take over by such a funny thing. Everything, Jim Jones, Heaven’s Gate, they are not stupid people who lost their lives, or who killed themselves. But somehow they have some kind of belief system can pushed them and overpower your intelligent completely. So it is so important for us not to do this. Don’t do it. Don’t let yourself to be fooled by your whatever. Don’t let yourself brainwashed. Don’t fool yourself with the belief system. But use your intelligent, think, analyse, ask other people, read information. Make sure what you are doing is right. Then, when you find something nice, and then it is intelligent faith. That never let you down, never let you down. If couple of people within Jim Jones having intelligent faith, everybody might not have died. If couple of people have intelligent faith among the hijackers, few lives might have saved. So, refuge, yes; not blind. We already seen the trouble in the world with terrorism. Unfortunately the terrorism is coming out of blind faith, for me, at least. It is hatred plus blind faith. Two powerful emotions working together. And that’s why unexpected people do something funny. So don’t let yourself be ever be the servant of your negative emotions and blind faith. So, that’s why you check the message, not the messenger. And that’s why Buddha says, ‘Don’t buy because I, Buddha , said so’. So if you think those lines, everything falls together here. So, you know, really Dharma without dogma, is to help us. Dogma is attached. I don’t know how it works in Netherlands. But in the United States you know, the Congress will have negotiations, and huge bills come, and whatever. Some are good, some are bad. They put together and when it becomes lower, it becomes lower together, you can’t separate. 0:43:33.1

So, dogma comes together. The rituals comes in and you know, those things come in (Rimpoche chuckles). You know it is dogma part of it. Anyway, taking refuge is important here. Okay, thus we have completed ‘common with the lower level’ practices. Then we will shift basic big outlines. You know we have common with the lower level, common with the medium level, and Mahayana, Now we move to the common with the medium level. And that also two, generating and seeking liberation, generating a mind of seeking liberation, and actual path which liberates you. Okay, I think that should be enough. So, we can move to the Foundation Of Perfections now, or even at the Three Principles. Okay, let’s look Three Principles first.(Rimpoche speaking in Tibetan to an audience) We are, in the Three Principles Path, we are half way in the verse 4. It says, ‘and the constant suffering of samsara. See beyond the cycle of lives’. And it says, ‘ No longer craving fantasy, a steadfast desire for liberation, attaining these two is the first breakthrough’. And in the Foundation of Perfections, (Rimpoche spoke in tibetan), Che pe mi ngom duh ngel kun gyi go . Yi ten mi rung si pay phun tsok kyi. Nye mik rik ne thar way de wa la. Don nyer chen por kye war jin gyi lob. Oh, ya, I forgot to conclude the Foundation of Perfections on this second verse what we are saying earlier. Nge pa ten po nye ne na pay tsok. Tra zhing tra wan am kyan pong wa dang. Ge tsok tha dak drup par ja pa la. Tag tu bak dang den par jin gyi lob. So the conclusion here it says in the Foundation itself it says, thus try to generate as much as the positive karma and the…with efforts put all creating positive karma. Isn’t there something for the negative karma too . Huh? Do you have the English there? (Audience read: Understanding that this most certainly is true, may I discard…) That’s right. ‘May I discard…’.so, we are simply praying ‘I may be able to discard all my wrong doings and may I accumulate lot of merit. I may be blessed to do this’. And then light and liquid coming from the object of refuge and meditating. Just like first verse. That’s like what you should do that. 0:49:45.7

Okay, I just give you basic two outlines. Generating the interest for liberation and actual liberating path. Generating interest for liberation, we will see, we know…in the West some very good thing we have. You know it is very hard to get in a lot of Eastern places. In the West you have, one advantage. That is you know sometimes how comfortable it might be, it doesn’t fill our desire. People who are in third world nations and all of those, not the rich ones, but the poor ones…even in the rich countries, some poor ones, and for them to make life good, to make good in their life, somehow they have to grab and craving for wealth. Thinking the wealth is the answer for all our problems. And we somehow knew that’s not true. We have enough, we have reasonably good enough. And that doesn’t satisfy us. So even we become Bill Gates, we are not going to be satisfied either. So which means the material doesn’t answer our needs. So we want happiness, we want joy and we are looking for liberation. Number one, we never even heard about liberation. Either God going to save us or not going to save us, we are only looking afterwards. And now, we heard something about liberation. We also heard the saying ‘Samsara is suffering, Nirvana is peace’, didn’t we hear that? I am sure you all heard, right? ‘Samsara is suffering, nirvana is peace’, did you hear that? If you haven’t heard, you heard now. Well, nirvana is peace compare with samsara. So you just heard the ‘nirvana’, did you? Anyway, nirvana is free of samsara. (Rimpoche laughs) Samsara is lack of nirvana (Rimpoche laughs again) We have a friend, you know, called Steve Konenberg. He has a joke with Indian philosophers. He lives in India a lot, he is a Jewish guy living in Ann Arbor. And according to him the philosopher would say ‘opposite of nirvana is the samsara, samsara’s opposite is nirvana’. And likewise with good and bad. Opposite of good is bad and opposite of bad is good. And he says that is the Indian philosophy. He might have some Indian professors who been giving lectures like that. So, anyway, we do have interest for liberation because we are not happy. Really. If we have it, we are not happy, if you don’t have it, we are not happy. Another problem in samsara is people controls people. Another ethical problem that we will face is the information. That becomes ethical issue, is information. You know in the last century we say those who have and those who don’t have and those who don’t have, really means money. But in this new millennium, those who have and those who don’t have becomes the information. And they control the information and manipulate human beings through the information. So that’s another ethical issue actually for spiritual practitioners as well as scientists, as well as journalists, as well as military people. It is all the information. This is information age, remember that. Even the spiritual people we have the same problem, right? Some have the spiritual information, some don’t, some controls. Don’t we? We control spiritual information too. Ya, so these are ethical issues, and samsaric problems. And you know, another century or so, something else will come up for sure. So nirvana doesn’t have those. And that’s why it is peace. 0:59:18.8

You know, we consider human life is the best, right. You say how wonderful , unlimited capability and all of those we talked. Tremendously we talked that, right? But we manipulate people; people manipulate people. People controls people. Earlier we used slaves, even though there may be one or two still available even now, not too many. But now, you know, there comes the money manipulation. Now the information. So it is full of problems in samsara in addition to that normal sufferings we know. Changing, pain, illness, death, change of life, separation….all of them when we look full of problems. So when you looking something better than that, you are having interest for liberation. So, there we have to shift to the second point of actual path for liberation. Okay? So, now we want very strong care for ourself, and awareness. Awareness wanted to help ourselves. That is preliminary, actually. And during the actual, alertness and followed by again a different type of awareness. Okay. So sor thar pa la, Drup pa nying por che par jin gyi lob. The Foundation of Perfections I forgot, what was the word there? What was the word there? Nam dah sam pa de yi drang pa yi. Dren dang she zhin bag yo chen po yi. Ten pay tsa wa so sor thar pa la. Drup pa nying por che par jin gyi lob. The next verse in that Foundation of Perfections. Nam dah sam pa de yid rang pa yi…with that beautiful mind, the pure mind which leads to… The pure mind what they are talking about, mind determine to help ourself, caring for ourself. Three things we need. First thing is remembering. Remembering we want to help ourself. That’s the mind, ten pa ngon drup, shi shing gyi nyam drup? Bi yu ….che pa*? So, remembering that has to go first. Alertness and awareness has to come together. And, always maintaining. So, three types of mind always have to accompany all our practice. According to the Foundation of Perfection, the next verse what to do is ‘tn pay tsa wa so sor thar pa la. Druppa nying por che par jin gyi lob’. So the essence of the teaching of the Buddha, the self liberation and I may be bless to practise perfectly. Okay, and I don’t think I have left anything in the Three Principles. Did I leave anything in there? No, I did not. 1:06:55.0

So, now you look in this outline of Odyssey to Freedom. So, we have taking refuge, what did we get there, Hartmut? (Hartmut: We are now at ‘ Seek liberation’, ‘Nirvana is peace’. Outlines, 39, 40). Liberation is peace, ya. Nirvana is peace, there you go. I think we have to go little bit. Positive actions bring positive results,33. Negative actions bring negative consequences, 34. Recognize suffering. 34, is gone. Recognize suffering. That really reminds us if it is really suffering, we have to move. So, 34, no sorry. 35, 36, 37, 38…alright, 39, 40, up to 41. And common with the medium level is very simple to explain. The real true path over here is the Four Noble Truths. Two negative side of the truth, and two positive side of the truth. And both are circle complete. Two sets of cause and results. One is positive side , the other is negative side. I think we did yesterday, ya. (Translator: Little bit, ya). So, when Buddha gave the first teaching, his first teaching is the Four Noble Truths. And that is how he discovered .He discovered suffering. He is a princess …he was a prince. I made female today (Laughters). One of the best Indian prince with all wonderful things together. You know how the Indians built palace, they know how to build, really. Look at Taj Mahal. Look at Red Fort. They really know how to build palace, you know. Okay, let’s not have much time. So, anyway, the poor chap was locked in samsaric goodies, and with all delights. Everything beautiful , young girls, young men, beautiful music, running swimming pools. Can you imagine how the Indians do. If you are sick, you are not allowed to go in the palace. If you are old you cannot go I there. So the suffering is not even heard about it. And that guy suddenly saw suffering. And he keep on saying, ‘what is this?’. And this is called ‘suffering’. ‘This is called ‘death’’, ‘This is called sicknesses’, ‘This is called old age’. And his question is ‘will I be subject for this, or am I immune? ‘So, thy have to say you are not immune. You will be subject for that. He asked, ‘will my parents ?’. They said the same thing. Then what about the subjects I am supposed to be protecting, helping? These are your subject. So, that’s what his discovery. And unfortunately it is truth. It is truth to all of us. Even today up to 2600 years, same old story is truth. How much pain we carry, mental, physical, emotional, and nothing is right for us. One after another thing goes wrong. We suffer, we ourselves suffer, we make others suffer. This is reality we have. It is truth of suffering. We all have it. But one good thig what Buddha did, when he discovered that is truth, he did not say ‘I am born with this, I have to die with that’. He didn’t. He said, ‘Can I do something?. So he found, yes, he can do something. And that something is not fighting against the symptoms. But fighting against the cause. Because when the cause was…the causal level, when you fight, and then no continuation, right. When you have river valley projects, all the waters from the different valleys bring them into river and then they block, right? But if you be able to stop the river flow in there, the River valley project will die. The rivers will die. The water will get dried, and nothing will be left. So, likewise when we stopped the cause of suffering, the sufferings will die. That is how Buddha discovered, what can he do. 1:16:56.5

And what is the cause of suffering? Two, karmic cause and the delusion cause. Karmic cause is intermediate level. When there is delusion, we create negativity. Negativity becomes karma. Karma give result. So the karmic cause is the filter. So, the actual work that you have to do is the delusion. If you don’t like violence, don’t have hatred. Likewise, you know, everywhere when you cut delusions. That is how you work. That’s where you bring a lot of compassion. That’s why you bring Wisdom. That’s where you have morality. That’s why you have generosity, that’s why you have patience. , just to block all these causes. And that is your Dharma. That is your Buddhism, and that is your spiritual practice. And that is your good human nature. That is goodness of you. So you build those and that will block the negativities. That stops the suffering. That is that circle. At the same time, blocking negativities. And eradication of negativities, becoming your path. Your meditation on Odyssey to Freedom, and your practise of Odyssey To Freedom, that is your path. And that path will block your negative emotions. And that will get rid of your suffering, In the long…not long way. In that…what do you call this? Some kind of circle moment, vicious circle, That’s how it works, and that path will give you cessation. When you block the sufferings, it becomes the cessation. And that is the positive circle positive side of the Four Noble Truths. That’s it. That’s the common with the medium level. And that’s what I mean, care yourself, help yourself. Unless you do it, nobody else can do that for you. So remember we cannot go and hire the monks and nuns from India do it for us. They can pray for us. You can hire them, they will pray for you. But praying is praying, is another matter. But actual work you got to do it. We have to do it, and each and every one of us have to do it. They can support us. Lama yidams can guide and support. But they can’t uplift you. They cannot enter into your body and change it. Okay, it is we got to do it. So, really what you got to do is this, very simple. I think that is good enough for the ‘common with the medium level’. Ten pay tsa wa so sor thar pa la. Drup pa nying por che par jin gyi lob. 1:22:51.2

Then the Foundation of Perfections now change to Rang nyi si tsor lhung wa ji zhin du. Mar gyur dro war kun kyang de dra war. Thong na dro wa drol…you know this is very good. Rang nyi si tsor lhung wa ji zhin du. Ma gyur dro war kun kyang nde dra war. So just like myself falling into this samsara’s wave…wa. What is the ..wom..Huh? (audience: samsara’s waters) water’s is fine. But you know like spider’s web. If you are caught in the spider’s web, if you are little insect, you going to be, you can’t get out, you know. So, just like myself was caught in the samsara’s web, and all the people that I care, are all in the same condition. Or, if you want to say ‘water’, same thing. As I myself sunk, or sinking in the water, all the people that I know, I care, are same condition. Now I know how to help myself, so let me help you now. This is exactly how it is. You know compassion is beautiful, wonderful thing. But if you don’t have compassion to yourself, you cannot have compassion for others. Then compassion becomes buzz word. It is empty shell. Then you say ‘You don’t know what to do’. I do care, I do care. I do care. But what can I do for you? You say that, right? Because you don’t have experience. You never helped anyone including yourself. So how can you help me? You cannot because you don’t know what to do. So, first thing first, help ourself. Then we will know how to help others. As I help myself, as I cut my negative emotions, as I build my positivity, as I purify my negative actions, as I stopped creating more negativity, I will help you to stop creating your negativities. I will help you to build your positivities. That is the how you can help me. If you are a teacher, if you don’t know the subject, how can you teach? All the students will be looking at you and your blackboard will be empty. Because you don’t know what to say (Rimpoche laughs) Exactly like this here. We all want to help but we don’t know what to do. Because we never helped, right? Yes? There maybe organizations will come up and say, ‘You want help? We get you. You volunteer for us’. Or, you give us money’. That’s how we help you. That’s what they do because we don’t know what to do. So, the first thing first. Please remember, whether you call it ‘renunciation ‘or ‘determination to be free’, but please care for yourself, and do those things we have said for the last two days. And everyday what you are supposed to do. Do that for you. That’s how you are helping yourself. Once you know that, now you can help others. I like to sometimes joke with Ram Dass, ‘You don’t have to write books, ‘How can I help you’. Because when you are writing book how can I help you , that means you don’t know how to help. That means you don’t know how to help yourself. You know there are a lot of self help books available, right? Self help is a tremendous interest for us. But all self help doesn’t really help us as much. To certain extent they help us to eat brown rice, and drink wheat grass juice, and maybe be vegetarian. Probably they try to help us to eat tofu. (Laughter ) But the true self help will be helping ourself to liberate from our pains once for all. And cause of pains. Nothing is wrong for us to pray ‘May all beings be happy’ and nothing is wrong for us ‘ May all beings free from suffering’…free of sufferings. 1:31:54.2